Yahoo is no more | Yahoo changing its name to Altaba Inc

January 10, 2017 – Yahoo Inc. is going through a rough patch. It was once the most popular website on the internet. Jerry Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo in 1994. In this early internet era, Yahoo dominated the internet; it had no real competitors until Google came in the business. Yahoo had been providing several services including Web-Search-Engine, Email-Services, Web-Portal, News, Advertisements, etc. Yahoo was the whole internet package; I remember using Yahoo myself, it had everything I needed. Unfortunately, the management of Yahoo failed to grow this business and they didn’t really give any competition to Google, which now dominates internet in all fields including News and Advertising. Yahoo Inc. was once worth more than $50 billion! Now, Verizon is closing a deal to buy Yahoo for around $4.8 billion.

Yahoo was recently under scrutiny when it announced that millions of Yahoo users’ accounts were compromised in two different data breaches in 2014. In these two data breaches, hackers were able to steal personal information [including email account passwords] of millions of accounts. One of the most disturbing news was that hackers were able to gain access to the Cookies-Creation software that Yahoo uses. Hackers used this software to create forged cookies and gain access to millions of email accounts. After this announcement, media houses thought that the Verizon deal was in jeopardy; many thought that Verizon might call-off the deal. But it looks like Verizon is still interested in investing billions of dollars in Yahoo.

The latest development in this saga came on Monday when Yahoo Inc. announced that they are going to change the iconic name and replace it with Altaba Inc, a name that sounds similar to Alibaba. The other notable development was the resignation of Yahoo’s current CEO, Marissa Mayer. She was working for Google before she joined Yahoo in 2012; she was the CEO of Yahoo from July 2012 to January 10, 2017. Many firms and individuals have criticized her for making bad decisions and turning Yahoo Inc. worse compared to what it was before she became the CEO in 2012. Yahoo’s net income for the year 2015 was $-4.35! Some other executives in Yahoo administration are also resigning.

May be this change of brand/name isn’t a bad idea if the new owner chooses the right people and the right plan to run this company. And if things do not improve soon, then Verizon is going to suffer losses in billions.